Asian American Testimony

“Testimony is a dialogical process of exploration and reconciliation of two worlds – the one that was brutally destroyed and the one that is different and will always remain so. The testimony is inherently a process of facing loss – of going through the pain of the act of witnessing, and of the end of the act of witnessing – which entails yet another repetition of the experience of separation and loss.”
– Dori Laub, “War, Genocide, and Justice: Cambodian American Memory Work” by Cathy J. Schlund-Vials

Through the Cambodian genocides orchestrated by the Khmer Rouge regime and the era of Japanese internment camps, the Asian American movement conveys a stagnancy in how people view those subject to mass brutalities inflicted upon certain ethnicities.

However, they socially remained in a state of stagnancy as Asian American experiences in times of hostilities are trivialized. It is true that the both the tribunal and the commission ultimately recognized the grave injustices of the Khmer Rogue regime and the United States’ wartime hysteria. However, there was a reluctance in giving the sufferers an opportunity to voice their personal attestations on the horrors acted upon them. Hesitating to provide an opportunity for legal measures in redressing the grievances of the suffering Cambodians and Japanese individuals demonstrates the Asian American’s movement impact in reestablishing a positive reputation for Asian Americans. It took 30 years for Cambodians to receive a chance to see the day Khmer Rogue leadership would face consequences for their actions. For the Japanese-Americans, the commission was established 40 years after the actual event. Japanese Americans faced opposition in obtaining redress through the commission too. It took decades before a “dialogic process” could happen, demonstrating a one-sided history devoid of historical realities. Reluctance belittles their experiences. Reluctance signifies a discriminatory view on Asian Americans. Reluctance perpetrates erasure and invisibility. Despite the stagnancy in social perception of Asian Americans, one must also recognize how both narratives bring up consciousness of the issues. Persistent push of political action in the tribunal and in the commission brings about an emergence of ethnic identity. Tenacious and determined, both the Cambodians and the Japanese embraced their pasts to amend the